Amazon's Kindle Fire will account for half of the Android tablets bought in 2012.
So says Robert Cihra, an analyst at US financial services company Evercore Partners.
He didn't indicate whether that's a global or US only figure - the Fire is, for now, only available in the States - but presumably the latter.
Cihra attributes …

COMMENTS

MS Should Worry

Why?

Well I'm still holding out for Win8 to come out before I make my decision.

I want a 'productivity' tablet, something to go alongside my desktop, something that will run the same apps as my desktop or at least the same file formats. Neither iOS or Android can do that.

Now whether MS can come up with something good enough to do real work on is another matter.

I'm getting the horrible feeling they're going to try and crash the 'consumption' tablet market without putting enough effort into the 'production' tablet market. If that is the case then you very well may be right.

Despite that. I'm still a little bit confused as why many people seem to think ubiquity is equivalent to the best (or at least the most appropriate). Many companies still make a shed load of money by dealing in niche products. MS should aim squarely at the business user/professional and forget about the mainstream.

I have to admit I'm not all that keen with all this rush to make the simplest product possible. A lot of these tablet/cloud apps have 1/10 of the functionality and take 10 times as long to run. Again, MS could mop up the little sector if they played their cards right.

There's already a little bit of a backlash against Apple for dumbing down OS-X Lion and some of it's applications (Final Cut) so I can't be the only one who prefers fast, fully featured applications. Maybe, these types of program won't be the mainstream purchases anymore but I'd certainly rather pay for something good than have something average at the expense of my privacy.

but isn't Android on the Fire

Price is the key differentiator, that's why hp touchpads became so popular. The fact that Amazon is a trusted brand won't hurt sales, but htc, motorola and blackberry are also trusted brands that have failed so far in tablets, as far as sales go....

Amazon is the differentiator only in so far as Amazon is selling the things at cost price to flog e-books, which is where they make their money. The real difference is cost. Bottom line, if a punter has to choose between an iPad and an not-iPad, the not-iPad has to be minimum hundred quid less costly to get the sale.

Curious, since HTC, Samsung etc seem to have no problem selling Android phones at a similair spec and price-range as the iPhone

Only 7 inches?

It seems to me to be a more useful size than 10 inches, which is in netbook territory. I bought a Kobo .Vox two weeks ago. I find it better than my smartphone for email and browsing, and still small enough to go in my coat pocket (this time of year at least).

And W H Smith seem to be shifting them. My local branch had sold out today, and they now cost £189.99 as against £169.99 at launch.

Re: Really?

The problem with the other tables is that they were expensive and crap, fanbois may cry but who the fuck wants a 7" tablet apart from people who bought Dragons and Orics in the 80's and justified it on a tech reason that no one else gave a shit about. Amazon has fixed half the problem and will take the low end, Apple we will have to see. If Apple come in with a $379, which i think is the sweet spot for mid-range, iPad 2 when they bring the iPad 2HD then it's game over. A two horse race with Google out of it and MS pissing in the wind.

I'd like to think B&N have a chance as there is a lot of good in their tablet but Google have shown they have more money than sense and Apple it seems are intent to show you can have more money than Sin. Also 7" is for the fanbois and niche markets. This game is over, killed by Amazon using Google and i have to admire their balls.

I also expect that on the Fire 2 Google will have a deal with Amazon. There competitor was never Apple always MS and now Face book.

Hmm

Not sure I believe the 50% thing. 10" screen is about the minimum to display A4 on and makes a reasonable browsing space for touch devices. A 10" pad != 10" netbook. Netbooks are still a bit hobbled by wanting to be a pc though perhaps this will change with Gnome3 and Metro. Perhaps the distinction will be blurred further as ARM chips gain more power. Hopefully, the Android folks can bring more nice productivity apps to android as performance allows.

However, itunes as an easy-payment platform certainly drives ease of use on ip*ds. I can see amazon being more interested in easy purchasing than google appears to be. Amazon has a larger inventory than apple and could easily do media - indeed does already do media for the "want to own rather than stream" crowd.

A generation behind

Barry Shitpeas ?

It seems to be an accepted assumption that Amazon is selling the Fire at or below cost. Then along comes a company (Ainovo) shipping a decent looking 7" Android 4 (dual camera, 1080p, capacitive screen) for $100 less. Sold out the first day. If it's mostly about price, then it's too early to call the game.